(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital still camera which converts an optical image into a digital electronic signal representative of the image and stores the digital electronic signal, and more particularly to a digital still camera capable of communicating to a remote site by means of a wireless telephone system.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In the field of digital still cameras, various types of communication of digital electronic image signals have been proposed. One of the typical proposals is to transmit the digital electronic image signal to a remote device, such as a computer, by connecting a digital still camera to a wireless telephone through a MODEM, and transmitting the signal to the remote device that is connected to a telephone line.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application Nos. 6-133081 and 6-268582 respectively disclose a digital still camera and a wireless telephone contained in a single housing. The purpose of combining the digital still camera and the wireless telephone in one inseparable housing is to conserve memory to store the digital electronic image signals. In other words, the digital electronic image signals are transmitted from the digital still camera to a computer at a remote site with a large memory.
Such digital image signals would otherwise have to be stored in a memory device included in the digital still camera itself. The device disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application NO. 6-133081 or No. 6-268582, which transmits image information taken by a digital still camera to a computer at a remote site, has disadvantages because the system is not able to receive image information from a remote site. Furthermore, the device is expensive and inconvenient because a large amount of memory is required and it takes long to transmit image pixel data per frame as it is or in compressed format.